We
have seen our constitutional rights be little by little be either restricted
or removed entirely. During the last 4 years we have seen our president,
elected to represent the people of America and uphold the Constitution
and the laws of this land, ignore his oath and rule a s a dictator removing
our rights to liberties that our Founders fought and died for.

We
will see more of our rights removed and made void during the next four
years because the party that has control of the Senate and the White
House have no regard for the document that has made America the envy
of the world.

Over
the years we have seen our Constitution redefined by the Democrat Party
to suit their idea of what America should be. Our Founders believed
in personal responsibility and for the right of the individual to prosper
as he saw fit. The Democrat Party believes that the common person needs
to be taken care of by the government from cradle to grave. The major
changes began during the administration of Franklin D. Roosevelt. Despite
his claim to the contrary Roosevelt was a socialist to the core. His
appointments of the Supreme Court show his socialist tendencies. Many
of his programs to ‘create jobs’ were overturned by the
Court because they did not fall into the constitutional authority of
the federal government. He believed that it was the government that
created jobs, just as our current president believes. In his years before
WW II he was a total failure and his economic advisor even stated that
all the spending Roosevelt did had only made the situation worse.

I
would like to concentrate this column on what has happened to our First
Amendment rights over the years. The First Amendment reads: Congress
shall make no law respecting the establishing of religion, or prohibiting
the free exercise thereof: or abridging the freedom of speech, or of
the press, or the right of the people to peaceably assemble, and to
petition the government for a redress of grievances.

This
Amendment was redefined to mean the exact opposite of what its intent
had been mean to understand for the first 156 years of its existence
in 1947 in the Everson v. Board of Education Supreme Court case. In
my book, Defining America’s Exceptionalism I explained what happened
to our First Amendment because of that case: The Everson vs. Board of
Education is an important case as it was the case that completely redefined
the First Amendment. In David Barton’s book Original Intent, he
effectively describes the results of this case: “The question
of what the Founders intended as the proper relationship between religious
expressions and “public” life (whether in education, law,
government, or throughout society in general) is clearly documented
in their numerous writings on the subject. Those records establish their
intent and thus clarify their two references to religion in the Constitution.

The
first reference is in Article VI, Section 3:

[No]
religious test shall ever be acquired as a qualification to any office
or public trust under the United States.

The
second is in the First Amendment:

Congress
shall make no law respecting the establishment of religion or prohibiting
the free exercise thereof. . .

Through
the years, these two constitutional requirements have formed the basis
of many judicial decisions. Historically, legal scholars have examined
both phrases when seeking the intent of the either; the understanding
of each was made more complete through examination of both.12 The goal
was always to identify and establish the original context and purpose
of those two religious provisos before attempting to apply them.

However,
in Everson (1947) the modern Court discarded this objective. It first
divorced the First Amendment from its original purpose and then reinterpreted
it without regard to either historical context or previous judicial
decisions. The result was that the Court abandoned the traditional constitutional
meaning of “religion” as a single denomination or system
of worship and instead substituted a new “modern” concept
which even now remains vague and the Court created a new and foreign
purpose for the First Amendment and completely rewrote its scope of
protections and prohibitions.”13

From
this case we see a complete turnaround concerning the meaning of the
First Amendment. This new ‘meaning’ is almost the opposite
of what the Founders established. If you ask “How do we know this?”
it is simple. The Founders did everyday what the Court today says is
unconstitutional. This 1947 misinterpretation has been a cancer to our
Constitution and to our rights. At this point I feel that we need to
look at historical evidence of the religious grounding of the Founding
Fathers. There is a term used in the courts that describes admissible
evidence and that term is ‘organic utterances’. This consists
of the bulk of historical documents and previous legal rulings which
makes up what is known as ‘common law’. We will look at
some of these ‘organic utterances’ and see if the Founders
were as un-religious as the Courts have declared.

Because
of this attack on the meaning of the First Amendment and the complete
redefinition of its meaning the Court has used that case to systematically
chip away at all of the provisions of the First Amendment. The Everson
case set the ground work to remove prayer from schools, the Bible from
schools and virtually all other public arenas. The removal of the Ten
Commandments from all public buildings has helped keep our religious
heritage from the eyes of our children. One has to question these Court
decisions all of our public buildings in Washington, D.C. have biblical
references carved in their stone walls. On the doors of the Supreme
Court even have the Ten Commandments carved into backs of the doors
so that when the doors are closed during the session, the jurists would
always have the foundation of our laws before their eyes. These actions
of the Court have restricted our “freedom of religion and the
free exercise thereof”. The Bible was the book for teaching in
our schools from the 1600’s until the early 20th century. The
Everson case made that illegal. Thomas Jefferson stated that the history
of our nation should be taught to our children at the earliest of age
so that it will never be forgotten. To teach the Christian faith of
our Founders has been deemed illegal because, well, it ‘establishes’
a religion and that is illegal. It is now illegal to teach the true
history of America.

Another
aspect of the Frist Amendment’s religious freedom is the ‘free
exercise thereof’ of our religion. That means we have the right
to practice our faith as we see fit. Our current president has denied
this right to all American’s through his so-called Affordable
Healthcare Act. Even though most of Americans are against abortions
this ungodly piece of legislation requires that all participate in the
murder of the unborn. That is a violation of our religious principles
yet the man elected to protect those rights is denying us those rights.

Even
the right to petition our government is being attacked. Since the last
election there have been petitions from all States to secede from the
union because of the massive voter fraud that won the election for our
current president and on the White House website there is a threat to
have the citizenship of anyone that signs a secession petition revoked.

It
is the philosophy of a Marxist/communist to remove individual freedoms
for the ‘good of the state’. Obama has no use for our Constitution
or our Bill or Rights because it puts limits on government and keeps
the power in the hands of the people. Our job is to maintain the rights
garnered for us by the Founders so we can pass those rights to our children
as the Founders did to their children.

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To
do that we have to elect men and women who love America and will defend
our Constitution. For the last two presidential elections we have failed
to do that. Our only hope to keep America from complete collapse is
the prayers of the Body of Christ and the House of Representatives which
is controlled by the Republicans. Between those two sources, prayer
being the most effective, we can keep America from destruction.

Volumes
could be written concerning how our rights are being taken away and
they will be written. We are told in scripture to occupy until He comes
and that means to continue to fight the good fight of faith. No power
can overcome those who know who they serve. Who will you serve? As for
me and my house, we shall serve the Lord.

Pastor Roger
Anghis is the Founder of RestoreFreeSpeech.org, an organization designed
to draw attention to the need of returning free speech rights to churches
that was restricted in 1954.

President of
The Damascus Project, TheDamascusProject.org,
which has a stated purpose of teaching pastors and lay people the need
of the churches involvement in the political arena and to teach the
historical role of Christianity in the politics of the United States.
Married-37 years, 3 children, three grandchildren.